Our Nurse of the Week is Alison
Pike who donated her hair to a fellow nurse who had lost hers after
chemotherapy treatment. Pike, and the nurse who she donated her hair to, Gra Doherty,
are both nurses at Wolfson Children’s
Hospital. Doherty’s hair started falling out after chemotherapy treatment
for her multiple sclerosis, a devastating loss that left her not wanting to leave
her house.

Doherty recalls when she first started losing her hair and says, “I felt very uncomfortable just because I didn’t feel like myself. I’m a hair twirler. I’m a hair flipper. I’ve had long hair my whole life.”

After
hearing about what she was going through, Doherty’s coworkers came up with a surprise
for her. Pike cut off 10 inches of her own hair and then she and a group of
other nurses collected $400 to have it made into a custom wig for Doherty.

Pike tells AJC.com, “The way her demeanor changed from before to after, I mean, I want to grow my hair out eight more times.”

Doherty’s
coworkers won’t be seeing her around Wolfson in the near future—she is
traveling to Northwestern in Chicago for a new experimental treatment that could
save her life. She was referred for a clinical trial for hematopoietic stem
cell transplantation, or HSCT.

Once
she’s able, Doherty hopes to raise money for people whose insurance doesn’t
cover the expensive fee for HSCT treatment, to help take away some of the
burdens of the disease and treatment in the way that others have done for her.

To learn more about our Nurse of the
Week Alison Pike who donated her hair to fellow nurse Gra Dohety who lost her
hair following chemotherapy treatment for multiple sclerosis, visit here.